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This week I am delighted to feature a new guest blogger. Matt Beaumont is one of the most connected men in the UK when it comes to all things customer experience. Having spent the last few years arranging world class customer experience events, he has had to make it his business to know who has done what and when in the constant attempt to do what is right for the customer. His post is a personal story that brings to life the power of social media – I am sure you will very much enjoy reading it….

Okay, now before I start this I want to make sure people know that I am a Football fan. For as long as I can remember I have been a fan of the mightyish Arsenal FC, a club I have supported ever since I saw the letters ARS on a TV screen, I honestly thought it was funny and decided that they were the club for me.

This would suggest to anyone who knows anything about football that I am not too keen when it comes to our arch rivals across the road Tottenham Hotspur, it is fair to say that both Arsenal and Tottenham fans have recognised each other as one of their biggest rivals and the derby is one of the fiercest in English football.

However, I must respect awesome when I see it and recently Tottenham have been guilty of some real good awesome involving my step brother.

My step brother is (as fate would have it), a mad Spurs fan, if there is something about that club he doesn’t know then for all intents and purposes it probably isn’t a fact worth caring about. He would do anything to be the clubs next star goalkeeper and although I would never tell him, is actually pretty good.

Long story short, but towards the end of the football season, he unfortunately injured himself in a training exercise saving a shot and did some really bad damage to his arm, it will be a while before he steps onto a pitch again, however he is making a really good recovery and has every reason to be optimistic about pulling off some top saves before too long.

This is where Tottenham Hotspur come in. Now in the interests of transparency I am connected to quite a few people in the corporate football world from research I have been carrying out for an event next year. However, it turns out that the Tottenham Hotspur social media team had picked up on tweets between family members about step brothers arm, cross checked these tweets against information that the club already had from various sources and were able to work out that my step brother and I were related.

Spooky, or really cool, you decide. However, this is where the club really win kudos, from knowing who we were and the fact that step brother has attended games at White Hart Lane, from a twitter conversation about an arm injury, they were able to obtain the fact that he was a fan and sent him the letter as seen below.

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Now whether this letter was really the words of then Head Coach Tim Sherwood or not I do not know, and I am not sure I really care. For me, I love the fact that here is an organisation who through effectively using social media have learnt that one of their customers is injured (or upset), and have sent a wonderful letter thanking him for being a customer and wishing him a quick recovery.

They did not have to do this, they chose to do this based on a choice of whether to proactively communicate with their customers and not being afraid to take risks with social media.

What was the result? One delighted fan who is now even more loyal to the Tottenham brand, a fan for life some may say.

What did it cost Spurs? Not much, just a positive attitude to social media.

How simple was this to implement? Very.

Could you win customers for life too? Is it really that scary to talk to your customers?

Lots of food for thought there, but Tottenham, well done guys, nicely done!

Matt Beaumont (An Arsenal fan)

Matt is busy arranging some unique Customer Experience events later in 2014 and through to 2015. If you are interested in speaking at a Customer Experience event, or would like to know more, you can either follow Matt on Twitter (@mattb_cx) or email him at mrmatthewbeaumont@googlemail.com.